María del Pilar, as gorgeous in name as in figure, displaying her little Renaissance tummy in precisely the manner savored by Spanish swains (until, swelled up by the Good Lord’s annual blessing, it must be replaced by one having the proper proportions), and with the graceful prominence of her pointed breasts, anatomical features that might never spell profit for a corsetiere but could doubtless be abundantly cash-producing for the personage who sported them—
Her Helvecio (a.k.a. Zwingli), so sleekly shaven that his face glistened like a blue shad in a running stream in his Confederated homeland. The man was groomed and, quite contrary to his occupation, clothed only in trousers, glistening white shirt, and white cord sandals, making the overall austere impression of a corpse on a catafalque; a handsome fellow of 25 at the side of a handsome woman who was but one minuscule year his senior—
María del Pilar’s sister-in-law, enlisted as her bosom companion, a broad-minded guest in her darkened apartment: Doña Beatriz, trying rather awkwardly to synchronize her broad Northern European gait to the mincing steps of the individual who, here at least, shall pass without the faintest taint of quotation marks—
And finally my humble self, her brother-in-law and would-be heart-throb, her premature obituarist, and the as yet unscathed victim of her connubial prowess: Don Vigo, who no doubt occupies her thoughts just as much as she does his…
Thus this domestic quartet ambled across the square. But then Pilar, too, became aware of the musical entertainers. There was another scream, an echo of the first one but weaker, more like a sob from deep within, like a devout ejaculation uttered in abject despair. And just such an ejaculation it indeed must have been, for it contained the sacred names of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. All doubt of its reverent nature was removed by the sign of the cross she swiftly made with her right hand over her face, following it up immediately with the larger analogue of the same ritualistic gesture. My own mother used to go through the very same motions when proceeding through the Stations of the Cross — more sedately, to be sure, and with more deliberate gestures of self-benediction, while insisting that her little boy follow and do likewise. But there weren’t any Stations of the Cross here. In Barcelona I had noticed that gentlemen tipped their hats when passing a church, and ladies crossed themselves. But here, there wasn’t a church in sight. How silly of me to forget that this same symbolic gesture can be used to exorcise the devil or to ground a bolt of lightning! So many oddities and novelties had descended upon me since landing here — I ought to have anticipated such a twist as a public, gratuitous Declaration of Faith in the Triune God, delivered wholly without expectation of reward. And there I was, thinking that I knew all the ins and outs of Roman Catholicism, a cultural institution that, to be truthful, no longer enjoyed my allegiance.
Keep your eyes and ears open, Vigoleis! For now you are living in a hyper-Catholic country, the selfsame land that perfected the Inquisition. Perhaps they will no longer escort you in hair shirt and devil’s cap to the gibbet — but be careful just the same! Beatrice, too, must be on her guard here, accosted as she already has been by a terrifying, fanatical glance on that boat on our way over here! Is it obvious from her looks that she is lacking a Catholic baptism? Once again, Vigoleis, take care! You are walking among religious fanatics, oh thou of no faith at all, in an exceedingly religious country. But hold! “Faithless Among the Faithful”—wouldn’t that be a dandy title for the diary you really ought to start writing now that you have begun a new life? A new external life, let it be stressed, for internally, in your heart and in your soul, let’s grant that there’s not much that can be done. Pursuant to the promise you made (permit me this gentle reminder!), do send soon a few diary quotes to your dear uncle, the Bishop in Münster who, prior to his summons to episcopal office, himself once traveled through Spain with a hiking staff and a beret that concealed his breviary. How comical were the tales he told of his extensive wanderings in mufti! And yet he can scarcely have ever found himself in such exciting Spanish company as his nephew at this moment, who, smooth-shaven and pressed to the nines, is on his way to buy a bed.
A bed? Aren’t you and Beatrice going to reside in the Hotel Príncipe? Or have you decided, rather, to take up quarters in the Street of Solitude? If you are to be the house guests of María del Pilar, then doesn’t she have a guest room with sleeping facility? And what about that nail on Zwingli’s right pinky? Has it lost its magical efficacy? As is well known, the Little Cologne Helpers are wont to perform their lilliputian domestic favors only at nighttime. But of course there are always exceptions. Besides, they weren’t afraid of the light back there at the port of Palma. And Pilar’s apartment was just the place for doings in the dark.
Earlier, as soon as the lovers had left the apartment by separate doors, each bearing a different burden in hand and mind, Beatrice had whispered to me, “What a frightful situation this is! Poor Zwingli! It’s enough to make you sick. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if what we have here isn’t a severe case of sexual bondage. When that happens, the victim just gives up taking baths.”
“Oh come now, Beatrice, that’s nonsense! If everybody who forgets to take a bath is a sexual slave, then I’ll be forced to revise my concept of human freedom. Especially my own freedom, because I don’t always take baths either.”
“This has nothing to do with you. And besides, you have a regenerating skin.”
Like that of a Zulu, I thought, but kept the idea to myself so as not to press my luck.
She was right. The situation we found ourselves in could well be described as frightful, particularly with regard to impending developments and threats of disaster. What is more, the situation was critical in more than one sense of the term. To be specific, the household budget was obviously in a terminal state. A third plunge into my trouser pocket, this time yielding a piece of paper currency, had materialized a midday meal, a feast that, it must be conceded, provided delectable proof that Pilar could be “superb” with the cooking spoon. How enormously talented she must be in bed — this I could easily gauge by the fact that Zwingli, an experienced gourmet compared to whose taste my own would then have best been termed porcine, regarded his paramour’s culinary skills as negligible. Today, incidentally, my standards of cuisine are rather different. My only continual failing in this regard is in the philology of the printed menu. I remain an easy mark for poetic designations of entrees that, once ordered and served, turn out to be nothing more than variations on the theme of the vulgar potato or some other miserable, proletarian vegetable. This happens even in hostelries that should be ashamed of such shameless sham. It’s just one more example of the degradation of elegance in our world.
Here I shall interrupt the course of my memoirs only so long as it will take to report what Beatrice, in Schwyzerdütsch conversation with her kid brother, was able to squeeze out of him. I’d better let Beatrice do the reporting, even though it means shifting into indirect discourse. Her account will by no means stray from our main topic.
Now then, we are already familiar with the “frightful situation”; likewise with the prevailing conditions of unwashedness. But above and beyond these givens: